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First of all hi everyone, great to join such a good forum.

I was looking a bit of advice on what would be the best to use, thermal paste or thermal pads. I'm currently using a thermal pad that was already on my arctic freezer pro and it seems to be doing a good job, sitting around 36c.
Would it be better to use the paste or just use another pad as i have never had to apply the paste before and am a bit dubious about doing it if i don't have to. Also if applying the paste would you say it's better to apply it to the heatsink or to the cpu itself.
Many thanks in advance.

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With regards to your question, apply thermal paste to the cpu directly, the paste should come with instructions. The paste i have says that you should rub a small amount of it into the base of the heatsink but do whatever the specific product tells you to do.

If you don't think that you need to replace your paste then don't worry about it, 36C is a pretty good temp.

No problem thanks, although i forgot to say that i'm changing my mobo so i'll have to either apply the paste or put the pad on.Well hopefully the temps will remain around the same as they are. So you reckon the paste is the best then?

If you are just doing normal computing and not overclocking, then I'm going to go against the grain here and say do not remove the crap that is already on the heatsink. Just rub the processor with the highest purity rubbing alcohol you can find, and slap the heatsink on.

If you feel like doing the paste, then clean the pad off the heatsink first with isopropyl (70% will work, but I don't recommend it, try 90+) then apply the paste in accordance with the directions.

No probs, will do. Think i might go with the paste as i will probably be overclocking it just a tad lol.

I recommend Artic Silver Thermal Paste, in my experiences it has produced the lowest CPU Temperature on my rig.

Simon

I second the Artic Silver, good stuff helped me keep my A64 X2 3600+ cool oc'd from 2.0 to 2.4, i tried pads at first but i was seeing idle temps around 90F. Not good in my opinion :P